Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday February 16, 2012 @03:43PM
from the wishing-for-an-open-source-sunset-clause dept.

New submitter Garth Smith writes "Tim Schafer has a video update for his crowdsourced project, Double Fine Adventure. Because of the nearly $2 million in funding, the budget is now large enough for language translations, voice acting, music, and more platforms. The XBox and PS3 are absent. I wonder what would the chances of a DRM-free release have been if funding had come from a traditional publisher?"

I would believe that this project would not be able to come from a traditional publisher on the basis that a "traditional publisher" nowadays feels that a game is not able to survive without DRM. Behold the brave new world of independant publishing ( am i showing my optimism there?)

Be optimistic. One of the "promises of the web" is coming true. We actually have democratization of a process that used to be limited by the wealthy. Just don't be irrational, and don't expect this to end the existing model which works just fine for what it is (able to produce highly marketed, general audience games).

And it's only getting better. KickStarter is great, but limited (intentionally) to a specific list of project areas. Imagine what could happen if you crowd-sourced VC or angel financing. Bypassing the stock market to be able to acquire shares of a company pre-IPO when they need start-up funds, having the high-risk, high-reward options currently only possible for people with millions. And from the other side, it would be an option for companies that want financing without the traditional VC breathing dow

Not currently legal in the United States. Kickstarter is expressly a money->product business. Buying shares or bonds of a start-up this way would be illegal, and you'd probably land in hot water with both the IRS and the FEC. If you believe legislators could be elected to fix this problem, go for it.

I'm not disagreeing, just curious... why is it illegal? VC firms, individuals and existing companies invest in start-ups well before they ever go public (for those that ever do) all the time. Why does doing it through a Kickstarter-like service make it illegal?

As it turns out, there's a current push to change this situation. It sounds like the illegal bit is soliciting investments in return for equity "from unaccredited investorsâ"defined as investors with less than $1 million in assetsâ"who are not friends or family."

Google the phrase 'Chinese reverse merger' to see why this is the case, this was a scheme for companies to avoid securities laws by being registered in China and avoiding a traditional IPO. While paternalistic, regulations force companies which sell to the investing public to register their securities and provide certain information relating to the companies assets, cash flows and earnings on a quarterly basis. Likewise, representatives who broker the sale of securities are required to be registered by FI

The whole point of this sort of model is that nobody really needs to care about piracy. I blogged about it four years ago [livejournal.com] (and basically describe Kickstarter in that post) as a way for creative industry to adapt to a digital world. If everyone's paid (by backers) before production begins, then there's no complaining about lost income due to "piracy". I wonder if I can get a job as a futurist?

Except that this is not the case here. The original Kickstarter target wouldn't have covered costs, and they would have needed sales. Even now, I suspect they will still need additional sales to make a profit. They won't be giving it away for free, so they may end up still complaining about piracy...

DRM free versions will be available for Mac, PC and Linux. The game will also be made available through Steam, and the IOS App Store, etc.... which definitely have DRM. Title here (and other places) make it sound like it will be DRM free only.

Steam games don't necessarily have DRM -- not even the kind that Steam itself provides. See for example DOSBox games on it, Witcher 2, VVVVVV, and a few others that allow you to copy the game files and play without Steam, without the need to crack them.

Steam is DRM. If Valve turns off their servers, you lose all your games.

With a DRM-free download, I back up the installer and can keep playing as long as I can find hardware to run an OS that the game can handle.

People often mistakenly say Steam isn't DRM because it's less annoying to them than the more in-your-face measures that Ubisoft and their ilk employ, but it's still a measure that gives Valve the capability of taking your purchases away sometime in the future.

That's true for the most part. DRM is a major function of Steam and the vast majority of games there are dependant on Steam allowing you to play them, but there are exceptions. Obviously games that run through some sort of VM (such as ScummVM, DOSBox, Snes9x, possibly Flash, etc) can be run independently of the Steam service, but there are also a handful of native games that don't bother asking for Valve's permission to play. Binding of Isaac, Super Meat Boy, Dungeons of Dredmor. The post to which you are r

Yes; I didn't mean to imply that DRM-free games are the norm on Steam, but they do happen, rarely. And for what it's worth, I've experienced all of those Steam woes myself except for losing games or my account. Steam is quite frustrating and annoying when it doesn't stay out of your way.

Hell, even when I want to play a game on Windows, I usually avoid it. Windows Updates, Steam updates, Firefox updates... everything seems to want to hammer my disk and CPU time as soon as I boot Windows. Just makes me av

Yeah, nothing worse than "Sorry, we've arbitrarily decided that the game you purchased with your money and already installed on this computer is now unavailable for no particular reason. Please try again when the stars re-align."

I used to think this way too, until I realized that just about every game eventually goes on sale for the amazingly cheap 75% - 90% off. I've never bought a game full price, most of my stuff is in the 10-15 dollar range, and I get a lot of hours of enjoyment out of it. At that cheap price its like a rental I never have to return, making it incredibly convenient.

Besides, its not like I can't go online and find cracked copies of the executable files

Same here. I've only bought one Steam-only game at full price, and that was Portal 2. I won't buy a full-price, heavily-DRM'd game (anything which requires online activation) just on a whim. I can't say I have the willpower to completely resist, but it has to be a damn good game for me to do that. (Starcraft 2 is the other one I've gotten like that.)

However, I have a ton of cheap-ass games I've picked up on their holiday sales. I have enough that I can't say that I'd not care if Steam went down, but at leas

Steam's DRM is... sign in to play.
The game will likely allow you to play offline, without the need for a CD Key, jumping through hoops, or installing rootkits that slowly shred your hard drive and CD Rom.

If you bothered to check out the Kickstarter page, the "returns" start at getting a copy of the game. They even had a level of $10,000 donation which would get you lunch with Tim Schaffer. If you went to Double Fine's site, they had even higher levels than that. $15,000 would get you dinner with the dev team and Tim Schaffer. $20,000 would get you dinner and bowling.

Isn't everything on an iPhone under DRM? I mean you can't transfer ownership or anything.

You are most likely correct. Tim's update doesn't say the iOS version specifically will be DRM-free, just that the game will have a DRM-free version available. Also, the game will be released for iOS. I tried to make a concise title that hit both these points but instead managed to add to the confusion. I regret that now and wish I could go back in time to correct myself.

But what if you're not the two biggest names in adventure gaming? How is some unknown supposed to get funding for a really good game? Double Fine didn't give any information about what the game will be -- they didn't have to, because they're who they are. But an unknown backroom programming squad is going to have to give more info than that... then watch as some big budget software house dedicates umpteen corporate programmers to producing something to his spec and making a fortune....

I have a hard time believing that, for instance, Italy has a larger market for games than Brazil, Russia, India, or China.

I too wondered this. The only reason for EFIGS I can think of is that it must be easier to release the game for the EU market as a whole than it is to prepare releases for individual markets around the world. I don't know if this is for legal or regulation reasons. Perhaps Double Fine has more experience dealing with EFIGS than it does for Russian. E.g. they might not have anyone in the

Which again comes down to where they play this kind of games.
Lucas Arts were always huge in especially France and Germany, while I would think China less so.
Another language they ought to consider i Japanese. The old school Lucas Arts games were quite popular there.
Of course another consideration is that adding a whole new writing system adds another level of complexity to the language question.

Markets are markets. I've been to Spain, France and Italy in the last couple of years, and I can personally attest that adventure games -- including the old Lucasarts titles -- are more prominent in games shops than in the UK. There are studios actively developing adventures in Spain (Pendulo) and in Germany (Crimson Cow). Central/Western Europe is there best target market.

As it stands the game is effectively pre-funded. Every sale Double Fine makes on top of the Kickstarter campaign is going to be pure profit so long as they don't go over budget, which greatly changes the market dynamics. DRM is first and foremost about being able to recover your investment, after which there's not nearly as great a need to stop freeloaders. So I don't think anyone should be surprised that their game will be DRM free; it's a nice gesture for sure, but it's not as if Double Fine is in a posit

Even more so since Notch is effectively writing them a blank check for their next game, Psychonauts 2

I wish! However Notch has admitted he didn't realize how expensive the budget for Psychonauts was. It was $19 million. So while Notch wants to be a major investor to the tune of a few million dollars, he alone is not able to completely fund Psychonauts 2 by himself. I have no doubts that Double Fine can find creative ways to make up the difference though! ='p

I look at the web page and I see talk about funding, platforms and DRM.

But I haven't a clue about the game itself other than that it appears to patterned on the old-school low-res Lucas Arts graphic adventures.

What I need to know as an investor is whether you have a story, characters, setting and design as original and compelling as Grim Fandango. What I want in a developer is someone who can say no to the crowd and it make it stick.

I *donated* to Double Fine because of Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert's reputation for making great adventure games. I fully realize that new game developers would not have the same success on Kickstarter. There is a benefit to putting in the time and effort to build a reputation! I find that myself I have much more opportunities available to me now than I did at 18. I realize that is because others feel more comfortable gambling on me when I can show that gamble has paid off in the past.

Your comment reminds me of a Billy Bob Thorton interview in which he states he accepted to star in the Cohen Brothers' film "The Man Who Wasn't There" without even reading the script since he liked everything they had done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6tWv-HaHAc [youtube.com]. Whether or not you consider the track record of Schafer and Glibert sufficient to blindly give them money is another story, but I actually like the way this project is being funded on no other ground than "it will be a point & click adventu

Please follow this example and do a refresh, please no remakes or re-imaginings, of the Wing Commander series.

I, and a few friends I know, would be more than willing to drop 50 - 100+ dollars into a Kickstarter project that would portray the original Wing Commander stories with modern updated graphics, sound, all new voice overs with the established series voice actors, and full HOTAS [wikipedia.org] support.

I'll even drop an extra 50 bucks if you provide a Steam-Play version so I can play it natively on my Mac.

How so? Are you claiming Double Fine is a bully in the video game industry? I could presume you meant Steam, but since the whole point of this article is that DRM-free options will exist, I am back to being confused again.

First, it's just humorous, not an actual contradiction of the GGGP's principles. Second, yes deploying to a platform does, in fact, increase the effective value of that platform, thus indirectly giving earnings to Apple. It's not a serious issue, and I hope this isn't a debate.

No, since you can't do Java on iOS, it is easier to do a cross-platform app in C with SDL for the graphics and audio stuff. There are some other options: C# via monotouch/monoforandroid, Javascript via phonegap or titanium.

I've noticed that American headlines often use "X, Y" instead of "X and Y" when there are two items.I assume it's to save space but, like you apparently, I still find it rather jarring (of course, it could be just a typo). Please let's not argue over which is better.

Did you know that adventure games are more popular with girls than Call of Duty or Madden ever was? I know quite a few females, that aren't my left hand (correction: my RIGHT hand), that are excited about this game.

As is the Wii. Which probably would make quite a nice platform for a DotT-style point-and-click adventure.

I could see this working awesomely on the Wii. I didn't mention the Wii because I don't have one and haven't used one for quite some time. I have heard people asking for a Wii version of the game so who knows? I have a feeling the main reason the consoles are being passed up is because of how much money it costs to get a game approved by Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo.

Broken sword on the wii worked surprisingly well, i was quite impressed. Wiimote for point and click is perfectly fine in my opinion, whereas the controllers, and realistically, even the kinect aren't all that brilliant on xbox and ps3.

People who donate $15 or more will get a copy of the finished game. For all purposes it is a pre-order with the option of paying more if you want. He is perfectly open about his motives and his goals for the project. In fact, with the documentary being made about the development of the game, as it's being developed, you could say this is one of the most transparent development processes ever. Scam? Opposite! If you don't like the terms don't pay the $15+. No reason to start name calling.

Yep, it's an ingenious scam, and it worked perfectly. Sucked me in, that's for sure. For all his affability and good nature, Tim Schafer is one hell of an evil genius. You have to give him cred for that.

I can only hope he tops it off by making the game about an evil genius who swindles millions from unsuspecting netizens. Using the SCUMM game engine. Now that would be inspired evil!